Tag: signing

(You see, Dana? All you had to do was occassionally buy the man a cake and EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE BETWEEN YOU TO.)

The past few years have been a roller coaster of emotions for Wanderlei Silva, to put it simply. In his last octagon appearance, the former PRIDE middleweight champion engaged in an all out barnburner with Brian Stann at UFC on FUEL 8, dusting the Marine with a hellacious combination in the third round of their ”Fight of the Year” contender. Then…he got booked opposite Chael Sonnen as a coach on the third season of TUF Brazil and everythingwenttosh*t.

Things began to pick up for Silva back in May, more or less, when a Nevada District Judge reversed the lifetime ban the NSAC had slapped him with for skipping out on his UFC 175 drug test. Last month, Wanderlei (or at least, his lawyer) was given a second hearing with the Nevada State Athletic Commission, resulting in the ban being reduced to three years retroactive to the time of his infraction.

Now a (relatively) free man who also happened to be released from his UFC contract contract in January, there was really only one career option left for “The Axe Murderer” to make up for lost time: Immediately un-retiring and signing with Bellator.

Despite being one of many fighters released from the UFC in February, forty-two year old Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko won’t be hanging up his gloves just yet. Earlier today, Bellator announced that they have signed the former IFL champion to compete at a future event. While it was announced that Matyushenko will be making his promotional debut in a non-tournament bout, neither a date for the fight nor a prospective opponent have been named yet.

In a news release posted on Bellator’s website, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney appeared very optimistic about the signing. “Vladimir is a fighter I’ve watched for years. He’s an exciting fighter with an incredible wrestling background and a great pedigree in our sport. When the opportunity presented itself and we had the chance to have him join the Bellator family it was a very easy decision to make,” he said.

In either case, it looks like Riddle will be given plenty of opportunities to do just that in the Texas-based organization Legalize It Legacy Fighting Championships, which Riddle announced he had signed a multi-fight deal with over the weekend via Twitter:

You have to appreciate how Riddle, being the witty bastard that he is, managed to reference both his recent quotes about beating his kids and the State of Texas’ history with blood baths in one masterfully written tweet. That’s what he was doing, right?

And in other news, Riddle’s opponent at UFC on FUEL 7, Che Mills, has successfully landed on his feet as well…

Even though Bellator hasn’t been giving us our weekly Friday night events over the summer, the promotion still managed to give us some big news last night. Yesterday, while you were preparing for dude’s night out, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney took to his Twitter page to announce that the promotion had come to terms with former Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Along with the above image, Bjorn Rebney tweeted “Great news. Babalu now in the Bellator family. He’ll compete in our 205 tourney on Spike in January. Can’t wait.”

A fourteen year veteran of our sport, “Babalu” holds notable victories over Shogun Rua, Jeremy Horn, Chael Sonnen and current Bellator light-heavyweight Travis Wiuff. Given Wiuff’s current run in the promotion, there’s a very good chance that we’ll see these two fighting for the Bellator Light-Heavyweight title if they were to meet up again. Sobral’s most recent fight was a thirty one second armbar victory over Tatsuya Mizuno at ONE FC 4 in June. He was initially scheduled to fight at ONE FC’s August 31 show in Manila, Philippines, although an opponent had never been named.

After getting caught in a triangle choke during his first professional fight, Lelo has gone on to win six straight. None of his fights have ever gone the distance, and his only submission victory was a rear-naked choke over Canadian Muay Thai champion Ken Tran at Battlefield Fight League 7 last March. His most recent effort saw him KO Matt Dwyer with a slam just thirty seconds into their bout in April.